To Tell a Lie in Cowardice-Daily Meditation 3.30.23

March 30, 20232 years ago BeckyWillis 606 Views 0 Comments

Post Credit Written By LivingLifeFully

Today’s quotation:

To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment–are all the blackest of black lies. On the other hand, to teach one to try one’s best to avoid the truth–even to press it when necessary toward the outer edge of the rainbow–for a reason of kindness or of mercy is far closer to the heart of truth than to repeat something accurately and mercilessly that will cruelly hurt the feelings of someone.-Emily Post

Today’s Meditation:

Is the truth overrated? Do we focus so intensely on getting other people to tell the truth because of our insecurities or because the truth is an absolute good that everyone should always tell? Personally, I have trust issues that developed when I was very young, and as an ACoA, I still have them, though I’ve reined them in pretty well. The truth is essential to me but is not always necessary or justified. When I have someone “demand” the truth from me about something that truly isn’t his or her business because they want something to hold over another person, chances are that I will give them an answer that will satisfy them rather than one based on the absolute truth. If the truth will harm someone else, I’m going to withhold it, bend it, or even break it to protect that person when I genuinely feel it’s necessary.

Of course, I would never advocate lying for the sake of lying or for the sake of personal gain. Emily rightly distinguishes between those truths that hurt others and ourselves and those rooted in mercy and compassion. The difficulty for us is to be able to distinguish between the two reasons and not to rationalize untruths that we want to tell, telling ourselves that they’re okay when really they’re not. We must not get into the habit of lying and justifying those lies with even more untruths.

I love the truth, and I do my very best always to tell it. But I recognize that sometimes it will harm others, and there’s often no need to do that. Suppose I have a student who acted up in class, and I know that child will be severely punished for a minor offense. In that case, there’s a good chance that I’ll say the student did nothing wrong–trusting that the student will learn something important from the incident and knowing that it’s not always up to me to control situations. I think that a young person more often will learn from a compassionate untruth than from a brutal truth, and I would always like to err on the side of compassion if it is even an error.